I know a lot of men and women who have rode their gloriously selfish, irresponsible years all the way into their thirties (and for many men in LA: forties) – later than any generation in the history of the planet – and so the idea to them of having kids now sounds scarier than ever. They’ve had too much time to think about it. They’ve heard the horror stories – that their life ends when their child’s begins. And they like their life just fine the way it is. Eight hours sleep, coming home late without so much as a houseplant to worry about, disposable income, uncovered wall sockets, why change a good thing?
If it ain’t broke, don’t have kids. Because kids sure as hell will.
The Childless and Fancy Free have built such a wall of what psychologists call “anticipatory anxiety,” that if it were up to them, the human race would stop procreating because it just sounds too darn tough. Morning sickness, birthing pains, terrible twos, teenage years, college tuition? No thank you.
We’ve got a new form of Freedom Fighters on our hands. Generation Me. To them, the only thing Pedialyte is good for is as a little known hang-over cure.
"Oh good, my maternal instincts arrived today."
And I’ve got to admit, my own nesting urges have been slow to come in. I think they’re on back-order in China somewhere. I’ve been trying to kick start them – doing ovary exercises at night – there must be some latent maternal instinct in there somewhere. And sometimes, like while sitting on a gondola in Montana, when I see these stinking adorable little ones zooming down the mountain, three feet tall, covered in padding, I can feel a little puttering inside. “Aw, wouldn’t it be cute if…” That’s where it starts, of course.
But then I finish the sentence and think about 3am, 5am, 7am feedings, paired with a stalled career, baby weight, permanent ponytail, vanishing sex life and worrying every night from the moment you find out you’re pregnant ‘til the day you die that your child is okay, healthy, happy. And I start wondering why anyone brings this upon themselves?
It’s a lot like going up to the top of Victoria Falls bridge in Zambia to bungee jump, staring down at the roaring waters below… and then waiting to jump. Just standing there in your gear, letting your adrenaline sour and morph into paralyzing fear. If you’d just gone for it, you would’ve been fine. Just as if you’d had kids right out of school. You didn’t know any better, then. But you’ve since had time to grow so comfortable in your permanent position as an adolescent that it’s infinitely more difficult to give it up now. There’s new meaning to “waiting too long to have kids.” You’ve psyched yourself out.
"I'm having kids!"
Obviously, we are not on the verge of extinction. People are making babies at this very moment. Maybe even while reading this blog. And most will probably take the leap eventually. And once you do, you’ll inevitably realize, yeah, there’s crayons all over the floor and your husband is asleep on the toilet because it’s the only place he can get any peace… but you’re a family. And from the outside looking in, you can’t understand it but there’s no greater feeling, no love more divine, than that.
And it all starts with a puttering.
…Well, let’s be honest, it really starts with a bang.
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01.11.2012
One day you will have the experience of writing from the other side, during a feeding at 3am
I’m currently interviewing candidates for who might wanna go halfsies with me on a baby.
I was about to leave a long comment on how I’m sure that, thirty be damned, I will NOT change my mind on this. Then I thought, “What if my kid reads that someday?”
Snide (Male) Commentary:
1) “They’ve heard the horror stories – that their life ends when their child’s begins.”
Noooooooo, it doesn’t END-it just starts again TWENTY YEARS LATER!
2) “There’s new meaning to “waiting too long to have kids.”
What-do you have something against the propagation of children with microgenia and macroglossia?!
3) “from the moment you find out you’re pregnant ‘til the day you die that your child is okay, healthy, happy. And I start wondering why anyone brings this upon themselves?”
It is well-known that all mammals procreate and bring forth placental young and have done so since the beginning of recorded time. But we are higher than the other mammals-a species unto ourselves-and we alone can choose to bring evil into the world.
) “People are making babies at this very moment.”
(Hat tip to Jonathan Swift): Damned straight! Them rug rats are GOOOOOOOD eatin’-ain’t nothing like makin’ yur own lunch!
4) “I can feel a little puttering inside.”
What-are you with child ALREADY?!
5) “Aw, wouldn’t it be cute if…”That’s where it starts, of course.”
Obviously your mom, being a therapist, didn’t teach you the necessity of a ruthless extermination of select feelings. Might I suggest a lengthy period of study with Commander Spock or a stay at any of the acclaimed Vulcan academies?-they should have you feeling ‘feeling-free’ in no time at all! (And as we send you off to the academy, please remember what Spartan psychologists used to say to their clients: come back either with your emotional shield or on it!)
6) “but you’re a family. And from the outside looking in, you can’t understand it but there’s no greater feeling, no love more divine, than that.”
Spoken like one of the vagina folk…
7) “my own nesting urges have been slow to come in.”
Clearly someone didn’t read to you Horton Hatches the Egg often enough as a sprite…
8) “The Childless and Fancy Free have built such a wall of what psychologists call “anticipatory anxiety”…”
Well of course: the ‘anticipatory anxiety’ of never having a sputum-free shirt-front, of the excruciating mental agony of participating in the fifth trip of the day to the mall to visit a fat, balding, sweaty, sixty-year-old man dressed as a purple dinosaur, and of enduring for the seventeenth time this week the unending saga of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, led by a rat sensei in a kung-fu kimono, protecting the world from hordes of aliens…
9) “It’s a lot like going up to the top of Victora Falls bridge in Zambia to bungee jump, staring down at the roaring waters below… and then waiting to jump.”
NOOOOO-wrong analogy! What’s it’s like (after you have the baby) is like being halfway to the ground from the top of the Federal Reserve Building in Boston before realizing that you’re the fourth window washer this week who forgot, after frequenting all the bars in the financial district last night, to clip yourself to both your main and backup retention cables!
10) “People are making babies at this very moment. Maybe even while reading this blog.”
My God, can’t you-even while you’re writing-take your mind out of the gutter?!